


Well, My Angels May Leave, Too

by APgeeksout



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:27:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title snagged from Tom Waits' "Please Call Me, Baby"</p><p>This is a shamefully late <a href="http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/489753.html">Fall Fandom Free-for-All</a> fill for the gracious and patient <span><a href="http://distantfridays.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://distantfridays.livejournal.com/"><b>distantfridays</b></a></span>, whose prompt was for: <i>Dean/Castiel; Castiel uses his Godly powers to see every possible future with Dean.</i></p>
    </blockquote>





	Well, My Angels May Leave, Too

**Author's Note:**

  * For [distantfridays](https://archiveofourown.org/users/distantfridays/gifts).



> Title snagged from Tom Waits' "Please Call Me, Baby"
> 
> This is a shamefully late [Fall Fandom Free-for-All](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/489753.html) fill for the gracious and patient [](http://distantfridays.livejournal.com/profile)[**distantfridays**](http://distantfridays.livejournal.com/) , whose prompt was for: _Dean/Castiel; Castiel uses his Godly powers to see every possible future with Dean._

It was Sam who called him back.  Sam, who prayed before he ever knew anyone was listening and kept at it long after even the angel Castiel had stopped believing their Father might hear or answer.  Sam who always hoped for more and so rarely saw his faith rewarded.   
             
Sam who kept him upright, snatching a fistful of his grimy trenchcoat before buckling knees dropped him to Bobby’s floor.  Sam, who deposited his less-omnipotent-than-advertised frame onto a threadbare sofa.            
             
Dean was there – close by but unreachable.  Castiel would have known, even if he hadn’t seen him vacate his seat, couldn’t hear the urgent words of his half of a telephone conversation through the wall.  Even before his transformation, he’d long been able to sense Dean’s presence in a place, to feel the spaces he had moved through.   
             
Now, despite the chill creeping into his core, the dizzy jumble of orders and flattery and pleas and taunts echoing within him, the aching in his bones, the writhing beneath his flesh, what he felt most keenly was the emptiness of the place at his side Dean had so often occupied.      

   
 _\-- “Hey, I gotcha,” Dean says, and an arm tightens around him, strong and steadying._  
 _  
This body, his alone now, for all that its features are still like those he once wrested from Jimmy Novak, feels clumsy and heavy inside its layers of wet fabric.  A chill seems ready to seep down to his brittle bones, except for the place where Dean slots into the space at his side, solid and warm.  His presence offers support for Castiel’s flagging body and for the idea that being human isn’t always quite this impossible._  
 _  
Sam, with his long gait and dry boots, has made better time on the trek back to the car and waits for them at the open trunk with clean, pilfered towels and reassuring words.  _  
_  
“We’ve got your back until you get the hang of it, Cas.”  _  
_  
Dean rubs a towel roughly over his own hair and adds brightly, “One of the tricks of the trade is learning to avoid letting the creepies drag you into the skuzzy pond water.”  _  
_  
“Noted.”  He follows suit with his own towel, but it seems to help very little.  The damp clothes cling to his skin and weight his limbs and he gives himself over to a fierce longing for the time when he could have rectified that with less than a thought.  But those days and that power are gone, so he wriggles out of the sodden trenchcoat and asks.  “What is the conventional wisdom on voluntarily jumping in after someone who hasn’t learned that particular lesson?”      _  
_  
“You only do it when that clueless guy is somebody you want to keep around.”  Dean, already in a fresh change of enviably dry clothes, closes the space between them, his hands going to work quick and confident on Castiel’s waterlogged tie and the buttons of his once-crisp shirt.  He tugs the tails free of his pants and peels the fabric away from his chest and down his weary arms and makes similarly quick work of the sleeveless shirt beneath, discarding all on the growing pile of laundry at their feet.  _  
_  
Castiel offers neither resistance nor assistance.  He simply accepts Dean’s ministrations, watches green eyes and steady hands as they move over him.  Dean unfastens the buckle of his belt with a slowness that can only be purposeful, callused fingertips whispering against the skin at his waist.  When he shivers, only the smallest part of the reaction can be attributed to the night air on his bare skin.  _  
_  
The wolfish grin Dean offers up says that he knows the effect he’s having, takes a pride and pleasure in it that he finds in precious little else recently.  He thinks, in the moment while thought is something of which he is still capable, that there’s very little he wouldn’t do or give to keep this expression on Dean’s face indefinitely.  _  
_  
This body is unsettlingly fragile, frustratingly inconvenient, and delightfully sensitive, and in the instant just before Dean’s mouth grazes along his jaw every part of him becomes a pulse point, throbbing in time with his busy heart.  This appears to trigger the small wound above his left eyebrow to offer up a fresh wave of pain and trickle of blood to remind him that being human is painful and messy even at the best of times.  _  
_  
At his indrawn breath, Dean pauses to give him an assessing look, and with a gentle smile, his touch shifts from lingering to practical.  He bends to untangle wet shoelaces and helps him to trade the last of his wet clothes for the dry garments Sam produced from the car’s trunk before melting discreetly into the night.  If Castiel still had any grace, he would bless the younger brother for his tact.  _  
_  
The t-shirt smells of lemons and leather and Dean, and the loose blue pants close with a drawstring and sit low on his hips – all the easier to remove later, the sparkle in Dean’s eye promises.  Dean cleans the slice on his forehead and secures a bandage over it with gentle fingers that move to cup his cheek with a tenderness that steals his breath.    _  
_  
“I’m glad you’re still with me,” Dean says --    _  
   
             
He wound his fingers in the fabric of his coat, knowing the effort to be futile even as he performed it.  His hands had not stopped shaking since his departure from the church where… a church that… one of the churches – he wasn’t sure where things began or ended anymore – and the trembling would not cease no matter how he tried to control his limbs.   
             
He had thought that the ritual, his new status and powers, would give him more control.  He had been wrong about that, as about so much else.   
             
It had been intoxicating, uplifting, transcendent, at first.  To reach into the heart of every one of his children.  To know the paths they had walked and those they had skirted by and those they might yet tread.  To see the best and the worst and the survivable and the mundane and the choices that made up the little distance between each condition.   
             
Perhaps it was just as well that he had had no companions by that time; the beauty and clarity of it had been beyond any joy he could sing of in even his truest voice. And just as the glory had surpassed his capacity to express it, the knowing was beginning to outstrip his powers to comprehend or direct or absorb or suppress.   
             
Instead, he was borne out on another current of _if only_ and _could have been_ and _might yet come to pass_ , as impotent to evade it and listen instead to the tense conversation taking place around him as he had been to still the tremor in his hands.     
               

 _\-- Ellen Harvelle Singer does not operate a hotel or a laundry service, and yet today, as always when the Winchesters return from a long hunt, they are met with cozy rooms, beds made up with soft, fresh-smelling sheets._  
 _  
Though Castiel is a not-infrequent visitor, he does not have a bed.  This is just as well, since, after the requisite minimum of polite conversation with the rest of the family, Dean guides him with an urgent look and possessive hands to the bed that he is more than happy to share.    _  
_  
Afterward, they remain pressed together among sheets that smell of salt and satisfaction.  Castiel does not require sleep, but he feels languid and wonderfully wrung out, and with Dean’s body stretched out, long and lean against his own, their shared heat pooling beneath the bedclothes, he knows he would be content to remain here until the next apocalypse.  _  
_  
He aligns his hand over the mark on Dean’s shoulder, fingers gentle against the familiar outlines of the raised scar.  Once, this would have caused Dean to flinch away, or to use his hands or his mouth in some electrically distracting fashion, evading one intimacy with another.  But, they are beyond that, after all that has happened between and around them, and now Dean simply relaxes into his embrace and tilts his head to press a lazy kiss against the back of Castiel’s hand. --_  
   
             
“Hey, Cas.  Think you can work with me here?”  Sam’s voice was gentle, so too the hand that curled around his elbow to help him lever himself up from the worn cushions.  
             
Decisions had been made.  They would drive back to the lab.  No one had asked if he were capable of transporting them or himself.  The answer must have been evident from his inability to transport himself through the house and out to the waiting vehicle without guidance.  
             
It had also been decided that Bobby should drive.  Dean had consumed too much strong alcohol to move them safely.  Sam might find himself back in Hell at any moment.   
             
Castiel had made his choices, and left all of them too damaged for the tasks that lay before them.        
 

 _\-- “And I wanna give a shout-out to Dean, the guy who taught me how to drive and how to short-sheet a bed and, first and foremost, how much Zeppelin RULES!”_  
 _  
The band launches into a song that Castiel recognizes and remembers from Dean’s car radio on the road in another lifetime, playing in the garage while he tunes up the practical sedan he’s driven in recent years, the kitchen where he and Lisa dance and laugh and collaborate on dinners for their family.  Dean gives a wolf-whistle and breaks into a broad grin.  _  
_  
The years have put fresh lines on his face, crinkling around his eyes and the corners of his mouth.  They are deeper than when Castiel last saw him – or, more accurately, when he last knew Castiel was with him – but more easily won, too.  _  
_  
The band tears into a chorus, and Dean reaches out for Lisa’s hand, twining their fingers together.  He sings along with Ben, simultaneous but out of tune, just loud enough for her ears and those of the dark-haired, green-eyed little girl who dances across the edge of the picnic blanket spread out beneath them.  _  
_  
Castiel finds himself with as many regrets as he once had comforts.  He had loved Sam too.  If he had been bolder, willing to risk more, maybe the three of them could have changed the face of Heaven or stopped Hell in its tracks.  He might have been the one to help Dean settle into the quiet heart of his life.  Might have witnessed his slow healing and occasional joys as a friend or a brother-in-arms or anything other than an insect, hovering furtively on the periphery –               _  
   
             
Dean was ignoring him.  No, that was not entirely accurate.  If he were simply being ignored, then Dean’s eyes might have chanced to fall on him on one of the many occasions that he glanced into the backseat to monitor Sam’s condition.  He might have mentioned his name in conversation with Bobby, or adverted to the fact that Castiel was the reason this journey and hasty strategy session were necessary.   
             
Dean was making a concerted effort not to acknowledge his presence, and as often happened when Dean put the whole of his heart into something, he was succeeding wildly.  Among the endless things Castiel yearned to tell him was that he need not waste the energy: he would be gone from their presence sooner rather than later.      
 

 _\-- They are too late.  Sam’s muted moan is only confirmation of what Castiel knows instantly from the cool imperiousness of the light behind those green eyes, the humorlessness of the sneer that stretches the familiar lips._  
 _  
“Dean.  No,” Sam croaks._  
 _  
“Wrong, Sam.  Dean “yes.”  And now you.  It’s all part of the plan.  It always has been.”  _  
_  
Sam gives a gutted chuckle, “Our lives have never gone according to plan.  Why shake up the pattern now?”  _  
_  
He sounds so brave, laughing in the face of horror as he’s always relied on Dean to do.  Castiel is proud to stand with him, to have chosen the brothers as his allies.  He despairs that none of this seems to have been enough to convince Dean to keep fighting.  The feeling only deepens when the loveless green gaze is leveled upon him._  
 _  
“Castiel, brother, you were always such a good soldier.  It pains me to see you fall in with this petty rebellion.”_  
 _  
“And it pains me to see you so willing to desecrate our Father’s creation just to drive home a point to Lucifer.”  _  
_  
Michael smiles a tight, cruel smile that doesn’t belong on Dean’s face.  “Their earnestness has rubbed off on you.  It’s very endearing.  I am sorry it has to be this way.”  He raises one of Dean’s rough hands in an efficient gesture and Castiel hurtles toward Heaven in an all too familiar mist of blood and bone – _  
 

 _\--  “Cas, you have to get rid of them.  The souls – they’re changing you.”_  
 _  
He chuckles.  “That was the purpose of all these things I’ve done, Sam.  It may be the first time since my family took a special interest in yours that my plans have ever borne fruit.”_  
 _  
“What he means,” Dean growls from where he sits, flask in hand, “is that they’re making you a danger to everyone, and if you can’t stop it, then we’re going to have to find a way to do it for you.”_  
 _  
He laughs again, and it sounds bitter and tired, the same as Dean’s has become.  He wonders if it leaves the taste of blood and ashes in the back of his throat too.  “Are you threatening to research me into submission?  You must know how badly that will end.”  _  
_  
“Almost as well as it goes for all those innocent bystanders?  Maybe you’d better smite us now and save yourself the trouble later.”  _  
_  
Dean takes a deep gulp from the flask, and Castiel wonders, if he were to cross the room and kiss him as though none of this were happening, whether they would taste anything but despair on each other’s tongues.  _  
_  
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” Sam asks, drawing Castiel out of his speculation.  “I know you don’t have to worry about giving anything back to Jimmy anymore, but you’re still looking pretty frayed at the seams.”  _  
_  
Something new ripples beneath the skin at his stomach, and he considers baring that flesh to the brothers, demonstrating how little they comprehend, how insignificant this physical body is to something as powerful as he has become.  His mocking laughter turns breathless though, as something coils around his ribcage and constricts suddenly.  _  
_  
Sam and Dean trade a look of concern, and something in him is touched that they should be alarmed on his behalf, even knowing that he has been rendered invulnerable.  The world will be a poorer place without them in it.  If only they could be trusted not to interfere.  _  
_  
He opens his mouth to explain this to them, to reason with them one last time, but all that escapes him is a low animal noise as his flesh writhes around him and his ears fill with the roar of blood in his veins and a moist slithering sound and his knees buckle and crack painfully against the floor.  He is dimly aware of the brothers drawing in close around him, hands reaching out to clutch at him solicitously, voices speaking urgent words which are lost to his ears.            _  
 _  
Dean’s hands fumble with his clothes, desperate to reach skin, and it might remind him of better times, but for the horrified expression on Dean’s face and the splotches of blood soaking bright and fresh through white cotton.  _  
_  
It hurts more than he would have expected when they escape, literally tearing loose, taking fragments of bone and gristle with them, leaving behind rents in his flesh, and a final, dim vision of Dean’s face, splattered with blood, eyes dark and hollow.   – _  
   
             
“Be as mad as you gotta be, kid.  I’m just saying, don’t go out of your way to give yourself something to regret when this is all over.”  Bobby spoke quietly.  “Looks to me like there’s hurt enough to go around already.”   
             
The words would not have pulled Castiel to the surface alone.  But arriving in company with the whisper under his skin, the slither through his veins, they dragged him back into the cold night and the close car and the hushed conversation.   
             
“I’ve done some pretty fucked up things, too,” Sam added.  “You keep forgiving me.”   
             
“That’s different.”  
             
“Different how? ‘Cause you love me?”  As so often happened when the brothers spoke to one another, Sam’s tone was at once both mocking and tender. “Try again, man.”  
             
Dean answered with a tired sigh.  
             
“Really, Dean, I’m okay.  Or, I will be.  And he needs us.”  Somehow Sam had emerged from the rubble Castiel had made of Death’s wall with grace enough for all of them.  “Do what you think you need to, but don’t do it on my account.”      
             
Castiel fell back into the stream of almost-futures before Dean replied.  Castiel had doubted that he could collect fresh regrets in the time left to him, but Dean always had managed to surprise him.   
 

 _\-- Castiel feels as though he has waited at this deserted roadside for an eternity, though he knows it has been only a few years more than half-a-century.  And though he has been eager for this reunion in a way his brothers and sisters don’t begin to understand – he’s not certain he understands it himself -- he doesn’t begrudge Dean a moment of the life left to him on Earth._  
 _  
He doesn’t remember the air having been so cold the first time he lived this night, but Dean must, and he is the one who shapes this place.  _  
_  
Another moment and Dean appears on the pavement before him, breath visible in the chill.  By this point he understands where he is and what has happened.  There is no surprise or fear in his expression this time around, only contentment, affection, peace.  _  
_  
“Pretty nice timing.”  There is a curious tightness in Castiel’s chest as he speaks.  It’s not his line, but Dean doesn’t mind, if his answering grin is any indication.  _  
_  
“Yeah, well, we had an appointment.”  --_  
 

 _\--  “Dean, it need not be this way.” He makes His tone gentle, chiding, full of long-suffering affection, and watches Dean’s jaw tighten in response.  A lesser man would have flinched.  Of course, He would not have tested a lesser man so harshly.  It would not sting so sharply to have a lesser man decline His grace, refuse to love Him._  
 _  
“No?” Dean tips his chin up, squares his broad shoulders, ever defiant.  Dean remains beautiful, body and soul, and He is still weak and fallible and _Castiel _enough to be stirred by him._  
 _  
“No.  There is ever a place for you,” He pauses while the wave of voices within Him crests.  “On your knees before me,” He intones solemnly, trusting the one whisper that rises above the rest, which says that these words will mean something to the man standing before him, will provoke him to action._  
 _  
And they do.  The grim set of his sensuous mouth falters, tips up at one corner in a reflexive, tender smile.  _  
_  
“Cas,” he whispers, the warm expression melting from his face even as the syllable leaves his lips.  _  
_  
The voice inside Him stills, and while the silence resonates within Him, He takes a moment to consider the ranks amassed alongside Dean.  Human allies are scattered throughout – all known to Him, though none as familiar as Dean.  The rest of the forces are made up of others, like Himself, more than human: some jealous, some amused, some starved for devotion, some indifferent to a world which has long forgotten them.  All are arrayed for battle and united against Him and His remaining loyal angels.  _  
_  
“I’m sorry it had to end here,” Dean says.  A single tear splashes down his face unacknowledged as he adjusts his grip on the silver sword that once belonged to Castiel. – _  
 

 _\-- “Cas?”  The voice that reaches his ears sounds hopeful and shattered and far too young to belong to Dean._  
 _  
He stirs against the hard floor, feels hands grasp at him, haul him upright, so that when he opens his eyes he finds himself sitting in the damp lab, propped upright by Dean’s hands.  _  
_  
“Hey, hey, hey.  You’re good.  I gotcha.  You’re okay.”  _  
_  
Dean’s words tumble out in a chaotic rush and his voice carries a note of laughter and an edge of hysteria that Castiel doesn’t recognize.  He reaches up to the hand Dean has braced in the center of his chest and wraps uncooperative fingers around Dean’s wrist.  _  
_  
“Okay,” he parrots, voice weak and full of wonder.  Of all this struggle’s potential outcomes, safe in the company of friends with Dean’s gaze fixed on him, intent and as warm as his hands, is the one he least dared hope for.   _  
_  
Dean makes a raw noise, something midway between a giggle and a wail.  His fingers twist deeper into the fabric of his coat, and before he can react, Castiel finds himself hauled forward and Dean’s mouth crushed against his own.  _  
_  
The kiss is sloppy with terror and longing and relief, and he is too surprised and too weakened to respond as he should, as every part of him burns to.  But, Dean seems content to tuck him close to his chest and murmur into his neck and hair sweet nothings like “Stubborn, short-sighted bastard.  Thought I’d lost you for good this time.” –_  
   
             
The night had settled thick and dark around the car.  The hour was drawing near; they were closing in on their destination.   
             
Much had passed without his awareness.  Discarded foam cups cluttered the floor around his feet.  A thin plaid blanket had been tucked around him.  It did nothing to ease the shivering that had probably occasioned the gesture, but it warmed him to imagine these men sparing a thought for his comfort, even after all he had brought upon them.           
             
Sam had drifted to sleep at his side, head tilted against the window.  Even as Castiel watched, he stirred fitfully and murmured a string of words that were lost against the glass and the steady rumble of the engine.   
             
Bobby and Dean had exchanged places.  The older hunter sat in the passenger seat, a worn book open across his lap.  In the pool of light cast by his flashlight, Castiel’s weary eyes made out a sketch of the sigil that would reopen the door.   
             
Back in the driver’s seat, fingers curled around the steering wheel, Dean looked very nearly at ease.  Certainly, one who had never fought at his side or been a passenger in his car in better times might have been forgiven for believing that he had no care more pressing than guiding the car around the next curve in the dark road.   
             
But Castiel was not one of those people.  He had been invited into the heart of this broken family, which meant that he noticed the dearth of music pouring from the stereo and the way Dean sat at attention in the driver’s seat instead of leaning loose and confident against the upholstery.      
             
Dean’s eyes left the road and found Sam’s face in the rearview mirror.  After studying his brother’s features a moment longer, he turned his attention to steering the car through a parking lot strewn with shattered glass and debris.  Pieces of the Impala.  The last precious thing Castiel had broken, after Sam’s fragile stability and Dean’s hard-earned trust.   
             
Dean parked and turned off the key.  Bobby was already climbing out of the passenger seat, ritual in hand, stretching and grumbling half-heartedly about the drawbacks of having lived to be an old man.  Sam woke with a start and blinked several times as though to orient himself.  He tumbled out of the door, but stood strong once his feet found solid ground.   
             
Castiel knew that he should move too.  Time was running out so quickly.   
             
And yet, it seemed to be all that he could do to keep himself intact and anchored in the present moment.  A moment when he and Dean were alone together for what surely must be the last time.   
             
When Dean lifted his gaze to the mirror this time, he met and held Castiel’s own.  The too-familiar hurt he found in the green eyes – and the knowledge that he was more powerless than ever to soothe it – made Castiel suck in a shaky breath.   
             
“Ready for this?” Dean’s voice was ragged, but he stretched his lips into a feeble approximation of his customary smirk.   
             
If Dean could be brave, then he would be as well.  “As ready as I shall ever be.  You?”  
             
Dean’s grin faltered. “Not a bit.”   
                                                      
 _  
\-- The doorway gapes, letting sallow light and fumes and chittering and scuttling and keening pour in from that other place.  Raphael tips his vessel’s head back, a rictus of delight opening across the unfortunate woman’s face.  _  
_  
It is then that Castiel sweeps forward and gives his brother’s form a shove toward the stinking portal.  Raphael resists, but the success of the initial surprise blow allows Castiel to keep him at bay on the other side of the opening, all the while intoning the words of the spell.      _  
_  
He is dimly aware of the air around him filling with the sizzle of holy water, the smoke of certain herbs, three other voices taking up different chants in complement to his own.  _  
_  
Great and terrible power settles into the dank room like a physical presence, smothering him with light and noise and an awesome pressure that he knows will destroy them all before anything can be saved.  _  
_  
But, an eclipse has a limited duration, and the men who stand with him know how to endure against hopeless odds - a skill that might be the only advantage they carried into this fight.    _  
_  
The door seals with the king of Hell and the would-be lord of Heaven firmly on the other side.  The air stills, and Castiel can breathe again.  He finds himself kneeling amid broken glass and ashes, hands loose and empty before him while the silver sword rolls through the grit to rest against the blood-smeared wall.  _  
_  
Hysterical laughter reaches his ears, filling the space around him more completely each time it bounces off of the tiled walls and stained ceilings and bare floors.  He looks at each of his allies in turn, and understands from their bemused, hesitant smiles that the noise - part shock, part relief, all joy – is bubbling up from his own chest.  The others find their feet and trade quick embraces and hushed jokes and come together, smiling broadly down on him.  _  
_  
“Come here, Chuckles,” Dean says, extending a hand to him.  On taking it, he’s hauled to his feet and into Dean’s arms.  _  
_  
Another noise, this one more grief than delight, echoes around them, and Castiel knows that he is once again the source when one of Dean’s hands comes up to stroke his hair and Sam’s arms and Bobby’s join the embrace.  _  
_  
“I never imagined that we could truly…” he trails off and allows himself simply to be held.   Comforted and supported at the hub of this wheel of human warmth and stubbornness and affection until he steadies.  _  
_  
“Truth be told, none of us was any too sure either,” Bobby rumbles.  He steps away from the group and gives his shoulder a hearty clap.  _  
_  
“But we did do it.”  _  
_  
The wonder in Sam’s voice reminds Castiel sharply of their first meeting, and he turns his head to give his friend the easy smile he so foolishly withheld before.  Dean’s hand falls away from his hair and settles low against his back._  
 _  
Sam gives his shoulder an extra squeeze, then pulls away, clearing his throat.  “Looks like Bobby’s got all the gear together.  I’m just going to, ah, help him check on the car.”  He takes a couple of backward steps and flashes a cheerful, awkward smile at them.  _  
_  
“Thanks, Sammy.”  He feels the chuckle in the movement of Dean’s chest and in the breath that ghosts over the back of his neck, though he seems to have missed the joke that occasioned it.  _  
_  
They stand together for what must seem a very long time, even to humans who have lived such extraordinary lives, but Castiel finds himself unprepared to let go.  It occurs to him fleetingly that he can’t recall the last time Dean gave him a gruff reminder about “personal space.”       _  
_  
“We’ve succeeded,” he says, finally and truly believing it only as the words pass his lips for the first time.    _  
_  
Dean shifts, opening up enough space to allow them to look one another in the face, and laughs again.  “Well don’t sound so thrilled about it.”  _  
_  
“I am.”  He lifts his eyes to Dean’s and feels his heart quicken at what he finds reflected there.  “Truly.  But I don’t know what I’m meant to do now.”_  
 _  
“I hear you,” Dean says, smiling slow and soft and hopeful, “and I was kind of thinking we should figure that out together.”        _  
 


End file.
